Founder’s Day

Today, January 22, is the birthday of the first president of the United States of America, the General of the Continental Army, and statesman, George Washington. For scores of years we, as a nation, celebrated Washington’s birthday as a national holiday. After his death, in 1799, people began to celebrate Washington’s legacy. However it wasn’t until 1879 that President Rutherford B Hayes signed it into law for the District of Columbia. In 1885, Washington’s Birthday as a federal holiday, was expanded to the entire country. For nearly 100 years, the people of the United States of America celebrated the birthday of one of its Founding Fathers on his birthday, February 22. Then, in 1971, President Richard M Nixon signed an executive order enacting the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968, officially moving Washington’s Birthday (its name remained the same), to the Third Monday of February. The move away from February 22 led many to believe that the new date was intended to honor both Washington and Abraham Lincoln, as it now fell between their two birthdays, and marketers jumped at the opportunity to play up the three-day weekend with sales, and “Presidents’ Day” bargains were advertised at stores around the country. By the mid-1980s Washington’s Birthday was known to many Americans as Presidents’ Day, though the Federal Holiday is still officially named “Washington’s Birthday.”

Another great general, born in 1857, was also born on February 22. Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, OM, GCMG, GCVO, KCB, affectionately known to Scouts world-wide as B-P or Lord Baden-Powell, was a lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder of the Scout Movement and first Chief Scout of The Boy Scouts Association. Lord Baden-Powell served in the British Army from 1876 until 1910 in India and Africa, and was a British national hero. In 1899, during the Second Boer War in South Africa, Baden-Powell successfully defended the town in the Siege of Mafeking. Several of his military books, written for military reconnaissance and military scout training in his African years, were also read by boys. Based on those earlier books, he wrote Scouting for Boys, published in 1908 by Sir Arthur Pearson, for youth readership. In 1907, he held the first Brownsea Island Scout camp, the birth of the phenomenon known today as the worldwide Scouting Movement which now boasts 30 million Scouts in 161 countries. Until his death in 1941, he worked tirelessly to support the world Scout movement. Today, more than a century and a half since his birth, that indelible imprint has grown exponentially. After meeting with Lord Baden-Powell, Chicago publisher William D Boyce, with woodsman Daniel Carter Beard, and naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton formed and incorporated the Boy Scouts of America. James E West would join the Boy Scouts of America in 1911, as the first Chief Scout Executive.

How can you celebrate Founder’s Day? Read B-P’s last letter to Scouts, which he intended to be shared after his death.